Monday, December 22, 2008

G5 Weekend Report

Hope everyone had a great weekend! We are winding down on days left until Christmas. Hope everyone has their shopping finished! I got the last of our "wrapped presents" on Friday. I headed up to Toys R' Us and got Ethan and Kaylee's last presents. I have some gift cards to pick up, but that I will do tomorrow. Nothing like waiting until the last minute, eh?

My mom came up Friday night and we headed out to Costco to do some shopping for our tamale making party on Saturday. I did all the meat prep and cooked the meat for the next day. I also made the chili sauce and salsa.

The next morning, it was on! We went to McD's to pick up some breakfast and coffee and we got started. We wrapped and cooked for most of the day. We enjoyed our Mexican feast of chips and salsa, taquitos, beans and rice while we wrapped. Boy, it is a huge undertaking to make tamales. We made a lot. We also made several different kinds. We have spicy beef, mild beef, spicy beef and cheese, mild beef and cheese, and all the same varieties of pork. I also have another 5lbs of masa left to make sweet ones (cinnamon raisin). I was going to finish it up tomorrow. It takes so long to make everything that you have to make a lot or it's just not worth it. It's the same prep no matter what. We were so stuffed from the other food, we didn't even try the tamales until the next day.

Saturday night, I ended up going to my first live stand up comedy show. Mark and I were supposed to go together, which was mostly the reason my mom came up, but he was still not feeling well enough by Saturday night. We were going out to celebrate the birthday of a good friend of mine, so I didn't want to ditch out. Also, when you have a two week stretch of the kids without a break, it's good to get out and have a laugh ;) Had a good time, but don't know if I would do the whole comedy show thing again. It was pretty pricey, considering they weren't big names or anything. They were pretty funny and I did have a good laugh. I got to visit with some old friends and even managed to learn a few words in Japanese! All and all, good fun. Wished Mark could have come :(

Sunday, I took the kids to a puppet show in Balboa Park. We did get to see some really cute dogs dressed up in Christmas outfits. I don't know if they had some event going on, but everywhere we turned there was a dog all dressed up. They were really cute. The kids had a really good time at the puppet show too. We sang and clapped (clapping is Javi's fav thing to do *stimming*). It was a Christmas program, so it definitely got us in to the spirit.

Sunday night, I took the kids to have dinner at my friend Carrie's. We made some carne asada from my fav Mexican market, where I purchase most of my supplies from. Most people in there don't speak english, so I get to bust out some of my espanol whenever I go there. Mostly, I just say "Necesito arrachera preparada, cuatro libras, por favor" (I need marinated flank steak, 4 lbs please.) or "cuanto cuesta?" (how much does it cost?). My Spanish is pretty rusty these days because I don't need to use it that often. I can still understand it pretty well, but my conversational Spanish is pretty awful now.

Had a fun, but very busy weekend. Looking forward to relaxing a little now that Christmas is winding down.

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Our Family

Ethan, Shanna (Mom), Kaylee, Javi, and Mark (Dad)

About our family

We are a family with three children with special needs. We do things just like any other family, just modified a little. Our life can be crazy at times, sometimes simple tasks are difficult. Love, patience and understanding sees us through each day.

Javi, Age 8, is living with Autism and ADHD

Ethan, Age 3, is living with PDD-NOS

Kaylee, Age 1, is living with Tuberous Sclerosis, IS and Seizures

Click on their site links below to find out more about our children and their stories.